The Oracle

by Jonathan Cahn

  “Allenby immediately set out to revive the morale of Murray’s exhausted and demoralized troops. His efforts proved successful. At the end of October Allenby engaged the Ottoman army at the Third Battle of Gaza and won. It was the beginning of the land’s liberation and the end of Ottoman rule.

  “Without Allenby’s campaign the land would not have been liberated, nor would have Jerusalem. And the promise of a national home for the Jewish people in the Balfour Declaration would have been of no effect. It was Allenby’s appointment as commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force that changed the course of the war and opened the way for everything else that took place.”

  “So when was the critical moment?”

  “In his memoirs of the war Lloyd George revealed the details behind the appointment:

  The War Cabinet came to the conclusion that it was desirable to introduce more resolute leadership into the command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force . . . On 5th June, 1917, the War Cabinet decided . . . that General Allenby should be appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in Egypt . . . 1

  “It all happened on June 5. The appointment would set in motion the chain of events that would bring about the liberation of Jerusalem and the Jewish homeland promised in the Balfour Declaration. It all began on June 5.

  “So the event that opened the Jubilee of 1917 was June 5. The event that opened the Jubilee of 1967 was June 5, exactly fifty years later. And the event that opened the Jubilee of 2017 was June 5, exactly fifty years later than the day that opened up the Six-Day War and exactly one hundred years later than the day that opened the Jubilee of 1917. All three Jubilees were set in motion on the same exact day.”

  “In my vision the one who blew the shofar faced the next mountain.”

  “Yes,” said the Oracle, “because all the Jubilees are bound together. The Israeli pilots who took to the air on that pivotal morning of June 5, 1967, did so exactly fifty years to the day after the British War Cabinet made its pivotal decision to appoint General Allenby to the command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. And the members of the United States Senate who convened on Capitol Hill on June 5, 2017, to pass the Jubilean resolution did so exactly fifty years to the day after the Israeli pilots took to the air and exactly one hundred years to the day after the British War Cabinet made its decision.

  “Thus the Jubilees not only took place fifty years apart; they took place fifty years apart to the exact day!”

  “Each figure in the vision stood on top of a mountain. Jerusalem is the mountain of God. So did each mountain represent Jerusalem . . . the Jerusalem of that Jubilee?”

  “Yes,” he replied, “as each opening event would lead to Jerusalem. What began on June 5, 1917, would lead to Jerusalem’s liberation from the Ottoman Empire. What began on June 5, 1967, would lead to the return of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. And what began on June 5, 2017, would lead to ... ”

  “Would lead to what?”

  “Ah,” said the Oracle, “I almost went ahead of myself.”

  “Would lead to what?”

  “I believe you will have to see what it would lead to . . . ”

  “And I would see it . . . in the next mystery.”

  “Which would involve what?”

  “The words of kings and rulers and how they usher in the purposes of God . . . just as they had in ancient times. They would again in the Jubilee of 2017, even through the most surprising of vessels.”

  “And how was it shown to you?”

  “Through the dragons’ lair.”

  Chapter 47

  THE JUBILEAN DECLARATION

  I RETURNED TO the ruins of the ancient palace. The Oracle was sitting on one of its low walls. I joined him.”

  “The vision of the dragons’ lair . . . what was I seeing?”

  “Remember what I told you about the granting of legal recognition and authority.”

  “That in the Jubilee it’s not just that you return to your land but that the return has legal authority. It has to be recognized.”

  “Yes. By whom?”

  “By the ruling authorities.”

  “And in Israel’s return to Jerusalem in 1967?”

  “It was the one thing that was never given.”

  “And the world’s leading power and authority was America. And no president would defy the world to grant that recognition. But 2017 was the first Jubilee after the return of Jerusalem. And one of the manifestations of the Jubilee is the granting of recognition and legal authority to the owner’s return to the land.”

  “But you said that Trump signed the waiver, so there was no recognition.”

  “He signed it in June. The waiver lasted for six months. So where would that bring us?”

  “To December. That would be at the very end of the Jubilean year.”

  “And so if the mystery is to manifest,” said the Oracle, “it would have to manifest then.”

  “And did it?”

  “On December 6, 2017, the president entered the White House Diplomatic Reception Room with an announcement to give to the world:

  I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. . . . Through all of these years, presidents representing the United States have declined to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In fact, we have declined to acknowledge any Israeli capital at all. But today, we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. 1

  “The president’s declaration concerned the Jubilean nation, Israel; the Jubilean city, Jerusalem; and the return and restoration of the ancestral possession to those to whom it belonged, the central issue of the Jubilee. It was the Jubilean event. The fiftieth year had come and again, like clockwork, the mystery of the Jubilee had manifested.”

  “It was the restoration that had been missing in the Jubilee of 1967—the legal recognition of the return.”

  “Yes. And as both Balfour and Truman were representatives of the world’s leading power of the day, so too was Trump in the Jubilee of 2017.”

  “The warrior-king in my vision . . . it was Trump.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the woman chained in the center of the dragons, she represented Jerusalem . . . the royal and holy city.”

  “Yes. And in the year of Jubilee she was released. The event was momentous. It was the first time an American president had recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel . . . the first time in modern history that any world leader or nation had ever recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or even as belonging to Israel. And it was the first time any major power had recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel since ancient times.

  “To find any other instance of such a recognition, one would have to go back at least two thousand years. And to find any instance of a world power actually supporting the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, actively affirming the city as Israel’s capital, and issuing a proclamation concerning it, one would have to go back nearly two and a half thousand years to the days of the Persian Empire.

  “The prime minister of Israel responded to the Jerusalem Declaration by calling it one of the four milestones in the history of Israel’s restoration.” 2

  “What were the others?”

  “The Balfour Declaration, the founding of the Jewish state, and the liberation of Jerusalem 3 . . . each one linked to the mystery.”

  “What about the rest of the world? What was the reaction?”

  “The declaration sent the world into an uproar. There were condemnations, demonstrations, threats, and violence.”

  “The dragons in my vision . . . when the trumpet was blown, they went into an uproar. Did the dragons represent the nations?”

  “No, but the spiritual forces by which nations are driven. You see, the war over Jerusalem is ultimately a spiritual one. And the world’s raging over Jerusalem went back to the days of Israel’s rebirth. In 1949, after surviving the attack of five armies intended to annihilate it, Israel managed to g
ain possession of West Jerusalem. It wasn’t the biblical city of Jerusalem but the modern suburbs that had sprung up around its walls. But even this was too much for the world. The nations gathered at the United Nations to pass a resolution attacking Israel’s right to West Jerusalem and calling for immediate action.”

  “What kind of immediate action?”

  “To forcibly drive Israel out. It was the first time that the world would specifically attack Israel’s sovereignty over its ancient capital and the first time it would call for action to separate Jerusalem from the Jewish nation. The resolution would seal the world’s course for years to come. It was passed on December 9, 1949. 4 It’s a noteworthy date. December 9 was the anniversary of the Jubilean event of 1917, the day Jerusalem was liberated from the Ottoman Empire.”

  “Did they plan to do it on the same day?”

  “No,” said the Oracle, “the war over Jerusalem is a spiritual one and one that transcends anyone’s planning. Now, on the world’s calendar the resolution was passed on December 9. But on the biblical calendar it happened on a different date—the eighteenth day of Kislev.”

  “And is that significant?”

  “President Trump issued the Jerusalem Declaration, recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital . . . on the eighteenth day of Kislev, the exact same day. So on the anniversary of the day the world issued its declaration that Jerusalem was not the capital of Israel, the president issued the Jerusalem Declaration, proclaiming that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel.”

  “And no one planned it that way.”

  “No, no one but One. But that wasn’t the only mystery to manifest in the Jubilee of 2017. The Senate resolution went forth in June at the fifty-year mark, the Jubilee anniversary week of Jerusalem’s liberation in the Six-Day War. The president’s declaration went forth in December, at the one-hundred-year mark, the double Jubilee anniversary week of Jerusalem’s liberation by General Allenby.”

  “Did the president choose to issue the Jerusalem Declaration at the hundred-year anniversary of Jerusalem’s liberation?”

  “No. It just so happened that the presidential waiver lasted from the beginning June to the beginning of December . . . from the fifty-year anniversary week of the one Jubilee to the one-hundred-year anniversary week of the other. Nobody intended it. Nor did they intend this: four days before Trump issued the declaration, the appointed Scripture that was recited throughout the world was that which spoke of the return of Jacob, the return of Israel, to his ancestral possession.” 5

  “The focus of the declaration.”

  “And that wasn’t the only appointed Scripture,” said the Oracle. “From the scroll of the prophets the appointed word spoke of how the Jewish people had been removed from their Holy City . . . how it was taken by the peoples of the region to whom it did not belong. It declared that Jerusalem was the possession of the Jewish people . . . and how they would again return to that mountain . . . to Jerusalem.

  “So the year of Jubilee had come and the Jubilean event had again been displayed before the entire world. For the first time in two and a half thousand years a proclamation had gone forth sanctioning the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem . . . the return of each to his own possession.”

  “The next time I saw the Oracle, I would be shown a mystery that lay behind a modern American president.”

  “What kind of mystery?”

  “An ancient one . . . a two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old mystery.”

  “And how was it revealed to you?”

  “Through the tomb of a king.”

  Chapter 48

  THE RETURN OF THE PERSIAN

  I RETURNED TO the ancient building on the mountaintop but saw no sign of the Oracle. Finally I heard his voice. ‘In here,’ he said. The reason I hadn’t seen him was because he was sitting inside the building’s only enclosed chamber. I’m sure there had once been other chambers, but it was the only one left. I went inside. There were several openings in its walls, through which came shafts of sunlight. The Oracle was sitting on a stone slab. There was another one to his right. I sat down on it.”

  “I saw a stone house on a pyramid of stones, and in the house, a golden king. I know it was connected to Cyrus, but what did it all mean?”

  “Twice,” he said, “the nation of Israel was sent into exile, the first time to Babylon, the second, to the ends of the earth. And twice they returned, once in the ancient world and once in the modern. Who was the king who issued the decree concerning their ancient return?”

  “Cyrus.”

  “And so in the modern return, in the regathering of the Jewish people in the twentieth century, we saw the replaying of that mystery in a Cyrus of the modern world.”

  “In the presidency of Harry Truman.”

  “Yes, in his sending word for the exiles to return, in his working for the resolution that brought Israel back into the world, and in his recognition of the nation at the moment of its birth.

  “But Israel’s regathering and restoration didn’t end with Truman. It went on, just as did the Jubilees. So as one Jubilee and one restoration led to the next, could the one American Cyrus have led to another? If the return and restoration were to continue, is it possible that the template of Cyrus could manifest a second time? Could there be another to arise in whom the ancient mystery would manifest?”

  “Was that what my vision was about?”

  “Yes,” said the Oracle, “the building you entered wasn’t a house—it was a tomb. You entered the tomb of King Cyrus.”

  “A tomb in which a king came back to life.”

  “As there would be a second American Cyrus, one who would replay the mystery and who would begin where the first had left off.”

  He paused to give me time to ponder his words before going on.

  “If each Jubilee leads to the next, and if in each Jubilee the seeds are sown for the one that follows, is it possible that in the days of the first American Cyrus the seeds were planted for another?”

  “Seeds for another? What does that mean?”

  “It was in the presidency of Harry Truman, in the days of the American Cyrus, that the next Cyrus would be born.”

  “And the child was named . . . ”

  “Donald Trump,” he replied.

  “Donald Trump . . . Not the most likely person to fulfill a biblical calling.”

  “It is the least likely who are often used. He was born in the year 1946, the second year of the Truman administration. His birth came right in the midst of that period when Truman was working to open the doors for the Jewish exiles to return home and setting the events in motion that would lead to the rebirth of the Jewish nation—the template of Cyrus. So it was in the days of the first American Cyrus that the second was born.”

  “But Truman had been a student of the Bible. I don’t believe you could say that of Trump. His life was not . . . ”

  “In that way he only all the more fits the template of Cyrus. In the Book of Isaiah it was prophesied of Cyrus, ‘ . . . you have not known Me.” 1 Though Cyrus hadn’t known God, he was used to fulfill God’s purposes.

  “It was in March of 2017, Trump’s first year as president, that he issued a statement from the White House on the occasion of Nowruz.”

  “What’s Nowruz?”

  “It’s the New Year’s day celebration of ancient Persia. In the president’s statement he actually spoke of King Cyrus. And he did more than speak of him. His statement contained a quote. It wasn’t the words of the quote that were most significant but their context. It was an apocryphal saying attributed to the ancient king. The president said this:

  Cyrus the Great, a leader of the ancient Persian Empire, famously said that “freedom, dignity, and wealth together constitute the greatest happiness of humanity.” 2

  “It was not only that the president had issued a public statement in which he spoke of Cyrus but that he spoke words attributed to the ancient king. In other words, he wasn
’t only speaking of Cyrus; he was now speaking as Cyrus. The president and the king were joined together. And this took place before the act that would manifest the mystery of the two leaders before the world.”

  “The Jerusalem Declaration.”

  “The Book of Ezra opens up with these words:

  Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation . . . 3

  “This is the setting in which Cyrus would issue the decree concerning the return of the Jewish people to their land. So according to the Scripture, when does the proclamation go forth?”

  “In the first year.” I replied. “So when was Trump’s first year?”

  “He became president on January 20, 2017. So his first year would extend to January 20, 2018.”

  “So then, according to the template, he would have to issue a proclamation in that period.”

  “The president issued his proclamation on December 6, 2017. Thus with forty-five days left the proclamation went forth in the first year.

  The LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing . . . 4

  “The president likewise first made a verbal proclamation to the world and after that sealed it in writing as he signed a written proclamation, which he then held up for the world to see.”

  “The prophet Isaiah,” I said, “declared that Cyrus was called by God to do what he did. And the chief rabbi of Israel told Truman that he too was called, as Cyrus was to do what he did. What about Trump? Was he ever told of the calling of Cyrus?”

  “Yes,” said the Oracle, “more so than all his predecessors. It was spoken before he fulfilled it, by people of faith, Christian leaders. And it was spoken before he even became president.”

  “So Trump was the appointed Cyrus for America.”